In Somalia, terror group al-Shabaab has spent years gaining and losing ground. But in the digital domain, al-Shabaab has limitless space in which to expand. It’s where one of the world’s best-financed terror groups spreads its propaganda, disinformation and recruiting messages throughout the region, the continent and the world.
Shahada News Agency, one of al-Shabaab’s most prominent online messengers, recently announced it is expanding its coverage “to include all countries of the Islamic world.”
By expanding its digital reach, al-Shabaab has signaled a desire to compete with the continent’s other violent extremist organizations for prominence. Several regional terror groups in Africa are affiliated with the Islamic State group and have robust media operations of their own.
On July 9, Shahada News Agency announced the launch of accounts on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) and shared the following message:
“[We] will no longer be limited to Somalia and East Africa as it always was, in an attempt to provide a news service that is more accommodating to the needs of the acceleration and complexity of events, and the comprehensiveness of the conflict.”
Shahada’s website typically publishes several articles a day in Arabic. Most are translations of English-language reports from traditional media sources, but some are original reports and analyses. Until recently, the subjects of these articles were mostly events in Somalia, Kenya and East Africa.
According to independent research group the Middle East Media Research Institute’s Cyber & Jihad Lab, Shahada News Agency periodically launched accounts on Facebook and Twitter before, but they were deleted within days.
Shahada also posts official al-Shabaab communications, including claims of responsibility for attacks. These Arabic reports are translated from Somali-language statements that originally are posted on another al-Shabaab media outlet called Al-Kataib, which operates mostly on encrypted messaging platform Telegram with multiple channels in multiple languages.
Researchers have found al-Shabaab’s messaging to be centrally controlled and consistent across all media.
“The speed with which the narratives spread from one social media platform to another, then to radio and to news agencies, suggests high levels of coordination across the group’s communications infrastructure,” Georgia Gilroy wrote in the CTC Sentinel.
In a 2023 investigation, nonprofit Code for Africa established a clear connection between Al-Kataib and Shahada News Agency, revealing their affiliation with sophisticated content-sharing between the two media arms that poses a growing threat to security.
That threat is now spreading across the continent and the Middle East as al-Shabaab is pushing its messages to a wider audience.
“It becomes increasingly evident that decoding the operations of Al-Kataib and Shahada News Agency is a key to dismantling al-Shabaab’s web of extremist influence,” the report stated. “This revelation underscores the urgency of monitoring and countering the terrorist group’s digital presence.
“In addition, it highlights the critical importance of global cooperation in neutralizing the threat posed by these adept manipulators of cyberspace as they use their influence to extend their extremist reach in the Sahel and beyond.”
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